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MAY REWIND: OH SEES, KAMASI, BLANCK MASS AND KING OF THE SLUMS NEW SOUNDS

Plenty of May thrills, not least a Bank Holiday live showing by Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters (hello to The May Queen, review is on its way) and a nod to Chris Cornell one year on, but in this Rewind we’ll ponder a few full-on tunes that made the right impression.

Oh Sees – OverthrownMan alive. Dwyer and co follow a scorched earth policy on Overthrown, channelling some reckless Motorhead speed for a nail-hard tip to the frazzled end of the Oh Sees spectrum. Annihilation psyche. Remember those Westerns where a gunslinger thug makes some poor sap dance for his life by shooting at his soles? The drums are like that guy’s feet. But faster. Dancing on sparks from Comets of Fire, it’s a fine teaser for the next Oh Sees splatter, due in August. Fierce-fried full-on.

Kamasi Washington – Fist of FuryThere is no jazz expertise or know-how lurking in these words. All I know is, Kamasi Washington is pushing my Amateur Jazz Dabbler button, and his kung-fu reworking Fist of Fury from his upcoming album pricks ears because of a lower-down groove poking its nose out – a 70s funking big band swinging it big time. Fusionly full-on.

Blanck Mass – Odd SceneReleased for Record Store Day, Odd Scene pitches a massive surface-level shift for Blanck Mass. Their electronica draws on heavy dark matter anyway (though last album World Eater still hasn’t clicked over here), but this is no electro-fest – it’s a riotous rage of guitar squalling shitstorms, throat shreds and metallized industrials, like Alec Empire’s noised-up fury flogging a horse called Ministry of Bathory. There’s something hollow about it, but deeper meaning is surely not the point. Violence is. Extreme for extreme’s sake, Blanck Mass have lost the plot and gone full metal jacket. Ferociously full-on.

King of the Slums – The Broken EnglishHaving only got into King of the Slums last year with Manco Diablo, I had no idea of their longer history. Serendipity struck soon after when the Barbarous English Fayre record fell into my hands in Dales record shop in Tenby and laid out a stack of tunes laced with violin. QUEL SURPRISE. Why do I mention this? Because the violin is back – but not at the expense of the metallic walls of axe that so impressed on Manco Diablo, at least not on this track. Violin brings drone and density. Band brings new album Artgod Dogs in June. Fiddlingly full-on.

David Jaycock – Browsing (Non-Fiction)Another Freakzone find this month was David Jaycock, being interviewed about his new album The Decline of the Mobile Library. Never heard the name before, but if John Fahey or experimental Fahey-inspired pickers like Jack Rose are anywhere in your acoustic orbit, this guy could fit right in. Somewhat paradoxically, Mobile Library is on Static Caravan. Anyway, Browsing (Non Fiction) is here for sampling. Fahey full-on.

Thugwidow – InvertedJUN-GLE! There’s something of Burial’s night-street melancholia in the intro that gives you a quiet anchor against the hyper-end skitter that skids around the rest of Inverted, and it’s a pretty neat contrast. Hard beats. Mary Anne Hobbs played it last week so check it here 46 minutes in, flanked by The Last Poets and GDFX. Jungle-force full-on.

Right, that’ll have to do – out of time this month, which means no overviews of stellar new TesseracT and GNOD albums.

JULY REWIND: KING OF THE SLUMS, SIR WALTER J WALLIS, HOBBSIAN DARK STUFF

It was the FACE. Black and white photo, ‘tash and glare, hatted like a rancher from way out West. Not quite what you expect from a small-town music festival programme, but there he was, projecting attitude, worlds apart from the folk blues smileys on the page. The blurb promised ballads, feedback and distortion.

How can we not check this guy out?

Sir Walter J Wallis: Ukedelia

And so it was that Thame Town Music Festival turned us on to the ukedelic blues scorch of Sir Walter J Wallis, right there in the low-voltage confines of Thame Snooker Club. Who he? Some self-styled Cornish outsider, armed with a uke, one shoe red one shoe green. How good is his crew? Good enough to banish the anti-rock daylight and carpet-ry to a 45-minute afterthought – this bunch of middle-age greybeards grabbed it. No ballads, and no slowhand-trad either ‘coz the licks were quick. Checking the Ukedelia album afterwards, opener Cold White Stone flies with a restless energy, and for all the bluesy labels thrown about in the festival programme and his own website, Sir Walter’s path is more Billy Childish smarts than Mayall’s Bluesbreakers – which is no doubt why they blazed the baize house that Thame aft. Rockarolla exciting. Back to Ukedelia, and its trebley solo/rhythm style – almost New York new wave – breaks through best on tracks like So What?, Railroading and Eye of the Hurricane, while Day I Made My Angel Cry‘s raw axe and horn decor ain’t a million miles from Spiritualized unorchestral.

So, not the most produced album you’ll ever hear, but on the back of a live gig it more than stacks up. Please, Sir … can we have more? And when?

King of the Slums: Manco Diablo

Hypnotic semi-riffs that loop around and around and around, then snag you on the downside: this is new album Manco Diablo, a record that sometimes makes you wanna rock, maybe even dance, but mostly makes you feel like you’re trapped in a mill town canal. Yeah. Reportage through a stained lens. It’s a bit dank, a shadow lurker, but behind the loping motifs, spoken vocals and Manc indietones vibe are guitars – big fuckoff ones, late-80s metal style: no air, no fade, no natural light, just endless sustain. I. LIKE. The whole thing’s slightly out of place, like a non-electro Wrangler, or maybe King of the Slums have always been like that? Dunno. Until Gideon Coe aired Lost in Translation the other week and prompted and an immediate spend, I’d never heard them or of them and knew nowt about their distant history, so this is fresh sonics. If it’s the same for you, check KOTS and do what you gotta do.

Pijn

Pijn (pronounced pine) played at the Dark Matter festival at the Manchester International Festival, and Dumbstruck & Floodlit was played on a Dark Matter Freakzone special the other week. Post-metal with a Godspeed arc that crashes the eye of a hardcore storm, ’tis another top new track. Album is Floodlit and it’s out now on Holy Roar Records, home to OHHMS.

And seeing as we’ve mentioned Dark Matter, we’ve got to tip our headwear to curator Mary Anne Hobbs, one of THE best broadcasters out there. Check this Baker’s Dozen with the Quietus magazine for a classy selection – Bowie, Colin Stetson, Mogwai, Burial, Deftones, Kendrick Lamar – and some character-defining stories from the Garstang escapee.